Asako HIRASHIMA

Enrollment / Completion

Enrollment

Enrollment year

2016-04

Graduate School

Graduate School of Education

Department

Integrated Educational Sciences

Speciality

比較教育社会学コース

Research Project

Below, I firstly present my master’s thesis with PhD research proposal in view. Expected development of the research will be shown indicating studies and researches I plan during PhD.
/// Subject matter in my master’s thesis is history of disability movement. On this issue, Independent Living Movement (IL Movement) has drawn much and central attention since sociologists in Japan started studying disability movement around 1990. IL Movement is a world-wide disability movement, developed mainly by people with disability themselves, seeking to gain independence that they have been deprived of by experts, family members and society. IL Movement has/is developed in the United States, the UK, and also in Japan. In Japan, the movement arose in 1970s, and sociologists started to look into the movement and its achievements since 1990s.
///For the extant and achievement of IL Movement was significant, there are few research on other disability movements and the image of the history of disability movement are covered with that of IL Movement despite the fact that there has been disability movements aside from IL Movement. Even though remarkable progress were made for the last 20 years in the field of sociology on the issue, I have to point out that the current recognition of the history is over-simplified, and we must not rest on the historical image; efforts to explore other disability movements are required today.
/// My master’s thesis is a contribution of sociological effort on amplifying the history of disability movement in Japan. In this paper, we will explore a case called “Tannpopo Movement”, focusing in its 1970s.
Tannpopo Movement arose in 1973 by mothers of physically challenged children. Core members were mothers of disabled children, but since the beginning of the movement, school teachers and a journalist was involved and eventually people who were not disabled themselves nor even a family member to disabled people become involved in the movement.
/// There is a significant difference between IL movement and Tannpopo Movement: while the main subject of action was people with disability themselves in the former case, in the latter case, various people including those who were not physically challenged nor even a family of disabled people took the movement on themselves. Therefore, by exploring the history of Tannpopo Movement taking account of the subject, we can expect to reveal an uncharted aspect of the history of disability movement. Hence the focus of this study is set to the question: How people who were unfamiliar to the issue of disability came to took Tannpopo Movement on themselves; to be more specific, how they reasoned the issue of disability and their position on the issue.
/// Above is the introduction of my master’s thesis, which my supervisor in the department of education valued as detailed and convincing, amplifying the history of disability movement as expected.
/// In my PhD research, I plan to deepen my knowledge on master’s research and there are two directions to develop the argument; sociology of civil society, and sociology of art. The former is being considered because in Tannpopo Movement the members considered themselves as “citizens”, which made reasons for them to take disability issue on themselves. In addition, one of the members of the movement were a key person for the establishment of NPO system in Japan; NPO is considered new type of social movement and also drawing attention of sociology of civil society. The latter, sociology of art is in sight, because Tannpopo Movement has interest in artistic expression of people with disability. Today, Tannpopo Movement is also developing “Able Art Movement” which tries to proceed society where different people can live together in better sense. To summarize the above, my PhD research theme is extended to civil society and art in addition to disability.

Enrollment Motivation - Career Plan

In IHS programmes opportunities to learn not only from books or lectures(these are also abundant and I appreciate it), but also from reality are offered. Also IHS is a chance to communicate intellectually with professors/students from other discipline such as philosophy, literature and natural science. These are what drew my attention to join the IHS Program and so far I am content with the quality and empowered notably by the opportunities. As for my career plans, my ideal would be researcher who is also an activist. During my PhD I would concentrate on establishing basic skills as researcher, but in addition to study at university I am helping NPO called Able Art Japan which is part of my field research. This would stay within my contract to IHS of course, and my experience in the research field is expected to be helpful to my career after PhD.